Into the Badlands S2E2 Recap/Review: Force of the Eagle’s Claw

Sunny (Daniel Wu) makes his escape to get back to his love while MK (Aramis Night) fights himself to take control of his powers.  Is he successful? Let’s find out!

Recap

The Monastery

It’s nighttime and MK wakes up from a fitful sleep to see the Master (Chipo Chung) looking at him holding an origami/lotus flower. She signals him to get up and follow into a room full of mirrors.  As MK got up, Tate, the guy he talked to last week, noticed The Master and MK walk away.  The Master has noticed that something is blocking him from controlling his powers.  It could be a memory that is in his subconscious. She hasn’t seen someone with his level of power in a long time.  MK accepts the challenge of unlocking himself.  The Master crushes the  flower into a vapor, which MK inhales the smoke and falls into a memory.  MK is in a room full of dead people, including women and children.  Another version of MK with black eyes appears behind him and tells him that they are the reason the people are dead and not welcomed.  MK wakes up back in the mirror room.

In another candle lit room, MK recounts what he saw. He realizes he killed those people in the cargo bay of a ship. MK wonders why she made him remember something so horrible. The Master advises MK that he needs to know his enemy to defeat him.  MK doesn’t want to go back and defeat anything.

The next day Ava tells MK that Tate ran away.  She also wonders what it’s like to work with The Master since this is the first she noticed her taking a novice.  MK reveals he killed good people before. “We all have,” Ava responds. With that, MK goes back to the Master, ready to face himself. In the dream, MK hears his mother calling to him.  As he tries to reach her he is confronted with his dark self.  The two fight, but the dark one gets the upper hand.  The Master brings MK out after taking blow after blow from his evil self.

The Badlands

Tilda (Ally Ioannides) tries to sneak up on Waldo (Stephen Lang) as he is hanging by a water fountain but fails.  Waldo heard about her revenge against the clippers The Widow (Emily Beecham) let walk away.  She felt the need to do something in retaliation of what the clippers did to Odessa and the other dolls.  He cautions going against a baron’s orders.  What made Sunny a great regent was that he locked his emotions away.  When he didn’t, all hell broke loose.  Waldo has tried to find out Sunny’s whereabouts but worries he is dead.  Tilda is concerned about MK as well but hopes that he is in a safe place.

Penrith (Lance Henricksen) with Lydia’s (Orla Brady) help marry a couple in their congregation.  She makes a toast at their feast hoping they have happiness and to thank everyone for welcoming her back into the fold. Some nomads interrupt the festivities, killing the new groom and a few other men.  Everyone submits to the will of the two nomads by getting down on their knees.  One of the men starts to lead one of the women away.  Lydia is having none of it, especially when the other man threatens her father.  She kills the two nomads.  Her father however berates her as she did not have permission to kill the men in their name.  “Killing is a privilege left only to the gods,” Penrith reminds her.

Lydia goes to Ryder (Oliver Stark) requesting protection from the nomads.  Ryder initially gives it until she starts criticizing how he is running things. Wondering how long she will last without him, he asks his mother to leave.

Quinn (Martin Csokas) is amassing an army of clippers hidden in the woods.  Veil looks on with the babe in her arms.  Later one of the clippers creepily watches Veil finish up breastfeeding the baby.  The man gets caught by Quinn, who dismisses him.  Veil tries to hint that she needs to go outside but Quinn forbids it, citing concern for both her and the child’s welfare considering the enemies Sunny has amassed over the years.  Quinn is grateful that Veil found him severely wounded and patched him up.  Quinn predicts big things for Veil’s son. He asks what she named the baby. Veil chose Henry, after her father.  Veil gets a dig in about the fact that her father is not alive to meet his grandson. Quinn leaves reassuring Veil that if he hears any news about Sunny he will let her know.

Baby Henry gets baptized with deer blood by Quinn in a ceremony that hasn’t been done in a long time.  He didn’t do it with Ryder and feels his son lost his way partly because of it.  Before drinking some of the deer blood and marking Henry with it he kills the clipper that stared at Veil breastfeeding.  He wants his men to respect both Veil and Henry and will punish those that don’t.  The next day he brings her to a room with sunlight so she is not deprived.

Waldo visits the Widow, who is practicing with Tilda. Ryder has called a conclave, which hasn’t been done in over 10 years. Waldo is concerned that if the other barons think The Widow violated the foundation treaty, they won’t have the resources to survive.  The Widow wants to eliminate the other barons since they will all be in one place but Waldo wants her to be political until there is no choice but to strike first.

Escape from the Mines

Sunny is forced with Bajie (Nick Frost) to fight against the Engineer’s (Stephen Walters) champion.  Bajie was surprised by this but the Engineer explained that he doesn’t like rats.  Shackled together again Bajie and Sunny work out the kinks for them to survive.  The duo makes it past the champion into another area of the mines. The Engineer boasts that he will still find them.  Sunny and Bajie make it out by following the water.  Yay, grass again!

The duo is walking when Bajie catches a rat in a hole.  Dinnertime!  As Bajie is eating, Sunny is trying to get out of the cuffs.  Bajie remarks how Sunny will need him if he wants to get into the Badlands to find Veil (Madeline Mantock).  Especially since he knows where they are in the outlying country.  He seems to be heading in the same direction as Sunny.  Bajie uses one of the rat bones to uncuff himself.  Sunny gets him to uncuff him as well.  So far, the former clipper will keep heading north.  Bajie decides to offer his services to Sunny one last time but Sunny remains silent.  Until he sees a huge wall between him and moving further to the Badlands!  That wall is older than even the barons, at least according to Bajie, who seems to hint that he knows how to get past the wall.  Both head down to see what’s what.

Review

I was hoping we would catch up with Lydia and her father this week! What Lydia did in this episode I was expecting Jade to do last week.  Lydia has not left all her old life as a baroness behind. If she did, she would have been like the rest of her father’s clan and did nothing.  What I liked about her fight scene was it was instinctual.  She had some basic defensive moves down so at least you know she learned something being Quinn’s wife.  Ryder acted like a bratty kid once again when his mother wanted to tell him the truth about how bad things really look for him.  However, Lydia should have kept her mouth shut and criticized at another time.  It was one of those quit while you were ahead situations.  Also, even though Ryder is pissed at his mother, he should still protect his grandfather since Quinn did for years.

I’m wondering if Penrith, in his wisdom knew that the reason his community may have thrived before was because he was under Quinn’s protection.  Knowing Penrith, he would consider that part of the gods plan to protect him. Would he really have a response if Lydia had told him that the gods told her to protect her people by killing the nomads? We may never find that out.  At least some of the guys tried to defend the ladies but they got killed for their efforts.  I know one thing, I could not live in that community.  They would have kicked me out a long time ago. Side note: I feel bad for Hera, the bride, she didn’t make it to her wedding night.  She may be cursed now marriage wise.  Guys may not want to marry her now for fear of not surviving their wedding day.

I don’t know what it is about Martin Csokas, but he brings a perfect combination of charisma and creepiness to Quinn’s character.  One minute I want to be creeped out and the next I can see why others would want to follow him.  It’s like when he killed that clipper that was ogling Veil.  I liked he did that but the way he talks to Veil is sooo creepy.  Quinn knows that Veil is itching to escape, otherwise he would let her outside instead of giving her a room where sunlight shines in a locked room.  With the barons meeting for the conclave, Quinn may make his move then revealing that he is alive.  He could also set up the Widow in starting the attack before she gives the signal to do so. Quinn is the wild card in this situation for sure!

Back to Veil real quick.  I got a few questions.  The main one being:

via GIPHY

Why the hell did she heal Quinn? He killed your father! She made a mistake trying to have Tilda choose to potentially kill the Widow when she was injured all those months ago.  The Widow’s would have been a better place to hide after saving her life vs. Quinn.  The Widow did not have beef with Sunny personally and with him presumed dead would only gain a doctor in her ranks and not much else.  She would be able to walk outside at least.  Veil blew it though that I’m not sure The Widow would welcome her if Tilda told her what happened.

I’m glad Waldo is around to advise both The Widow and Tilda.  Someone needed to check Tilda after her stunt with those clippers.  I think Waldo wants The Widow to win the war, but I am concerned that he could betray her if Quinn starts sniffing around again.  How awesome is it that his skills are still on point?! I knew Tilda couldn’t sneak up on him!  I also think it is sweet that he still wants to look for Sunny. Did anyone else chuckle when The Widow indicated that Ryder was so weak for calling the conclave meeting in the first place?

MK trips me out like he’s special in feeling the guilt of killing people because of his ability.  I felt like Ava was also saying, “And? Is that it?” when he complained about his guilt. He was whiny at first but got his act together in the end.  I did enjoy the fight against himself.  It looked like a dance until MK was getting his butt kicked.  The Master showed us yet another cool trick with the flower vapor.  What other abilities will we see? I feel like there would be no limit.

Bajie just got more interesting.  His claim of needing to head to the Badlands makes me curious. Could he be someone’s son? Could he be connected to Waldo? Sunny is so stubborn.  Bajie showed why Sunny needs him after they left the mines.  They can use each other to get where they are going.  Tell me why when I saw the wall it reminded me of wall keeping out King Kong….

While slower paced (yes, even with some fight scenes), this was still a solid set up episode.  I’m hoping to see Bajie fight more.  MK needs to defeat his evil self and fast.  I think the Master is concerned how long he can last without full control.  What are your thoughts on the episode? Sound off below in the comments!